Semiconductor manufacture and fabrication has grown increasingly more complex and important in the field of integrated circuitry. Semiconductors may have a quiescent current in some circumstances; a “quiescent current” generally refers to a leakage current produced by an integrated circuit normally, or by some defect or irregularity in the semiconductor component, device or element. Quiescent current testing and detection has similarly grown in importance in semiconductor manufacturing. Quiescent current testing is generally implemented to detect integrated circuit defects that may occur during the fabrication of various semiconductor components or elements. Quiescent current testing provides the ability to identify semiconductor processing physical defects such as: gate oxide shorts, floating gates, and bridging faults that include manufacturing errors, for example.
Quiescent current measurement is generally performed by directly inserting a measurement tool between connections or couplings of an integrated circuit and measuring a voltage drop across the measurement tool. Inserting the measurement tool directly into a connection or a coupling within an integrated circuit however leads to performance degradation and longer measurement testing times. In addition, such tools or devices that directly measure quiescent current are often large and cumbersome and occupy valuable space on the associated integrated circuit.